Plan for safe injection site gets dose of reality over federal drug laws

A supporter greets San Francisco Mayor London Breed, third from left, as she participates in a walking tour of the Tenderloin with Jonea Drummer, second from left, community ambassador for Mid Market/Tenderloin, Mohammed Nuru, right, Director of Public Works and other department heads on Friday, July 13, 2018, in San Francisco, Cali.

Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

There’s a reason San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced that she is opening a model of a safe injection center in the Tenderloin: She’s been warned by the city attorney that opening a real injection site, where drug users can shoot up under supervision, could get her in hot water with the federal government.

According to City Hall sources, City Attorney Dennis Herrera had confidentially advised her predecessor, former Mayor Mark Farrell, and members of the the Board of Supervisors that they could be held criminally liable under federal drug statutes if they attempted to move ahead with the injection centers — that was a red flag warning not to proceed.

One City Hall source privy to the conversations told us Herrera was particularly worried about the threats from the Trump administration to go after drug dealers and new guidelines issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March applying the death penalty to numerous drug-related crimes under existing law.

“The threats from his government are no joke, and the city attorney advised (Farrell and other city officials) that heroin is a Schedule 1 drug ... with a lot of legal liability,” said the source, who was not authorized to speak for the record. “San Francisco’s public health director could wind up being put in jail” for allowing people to shoot up, no matter the surroundings.

Earlier this year, Barbara Garcia, director of San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, said she expected to have the first of two privately funded injection sites open in July — with more to follow if they proved a success.

Richard Chenery injects heroin he bought on the street at the Insite safe injection clinic in Vancouver, B.C., on Wednesday May 11, 2011. Insite, North America's first and only legal injection site, promoted by its founders as a safe, humane facility for drug abusers, is now facing a court challenge from the Conservative government that sees it as a facilitator of drug abuse. The case opens before the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa on Thursday, May 12, 2011 and has drawn international attention. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darryl Dyck)

Photo: DARRYL DYCK / ASSOCIATED PRESS

But Garcia has since stepped back. Health Department spokeswoman Rachael Kagan told us that “we are still working through legal barriers.”

“We are going to have to decline to comment at this time, due to ongoing advice being provided to other city departments on this issue,” Andrea Guzman, deputy press secretary to the city attorney, told us late last week.

“Nobody said this was going to be easy,” said P.J. Johnston, spokesman for Breed. “But this is a public health crisis, and the mayor wants every tool at her disposal” — hence the public unveiling of a mock-up injection center at San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church, at 330 Ellis St.

City officials estimate that as many as 22,000 intravenous drug users shoot up in San Francisco, leaving behind tens of thousands of dirty needles in the process. The city freely dispenses millions of clean needles a year on demand, arguing that it is the best way to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

But while polling shows that roughly two-thirds of San Franciscans favor the idea of drop-in facilities for intravenous drug users to shoot up safely and receive medical and other services, there is no getting around the threat of legal action against city officials.

A bill coauthored by state Sen. Scott Wiener would have shielded property owners, employees and drug users from arrest and allowed San Francisco and seven other counties to open safe injection sites.

But even Wiener’s effort, while winning approval in the Assembly, came up two votes short in the California Senate when it came up for approval last September.

Bumpy ride: The first new cars in BART’s highly touted “Fleet of the Future” are spending quite a bit of time in the shop, as troubles and glitches continue to pop up.

Workers prepare to begin testing new BART cars in Hayward last year.

Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle

According to BART records, the first 10 Bombardier cars, which cost $1.7 million to $2 million each, have needed 481 fixes since going into regular service in January.

Most of the visits to the service shop were for “preventive maintenance” aimed at fine-tuning each car’s more than 30 microprocessors and 180 software packages. But a whopping 202 of the visits were triggered by mechanical problems — everything from motor, drive-train and brake troubles to malfunctioning doors and improperly flashing signs.

That’s an average of 20 mechanical problems per car — per month.

Of the 160 work orders for the second batch of 10 cars, 110 were for mechanical problems that popped up unexpectedly.

BART officials say the high volume of technical fixes was to be expected, given that the new custom-made cars were “prototype vehicles with such a high level of technical complexity.”

And since BART’s rail gauge is different from those of other rail systems around the county, the cars could not be tested at the Bombardier factory in upstate New York.

“We have to do all of the testing here,” BART spokesman Jim Allison said.

Still, BART spent nine months road-testing the cars on its rails, as well as meeting a lengthy review by the state Public Utilities Commission, before the cars went into service.

“It looks worse on paper than it is,” Allison said, adding that under the BART contract, Bombardier is responsible for the costs of the repairs.

BART’s original schedule called for having 163 cars up and running by July 1. The number was later upped to 198 cars.

However, ongoing manufacturing and testing delays have slowed the delivery to a snail’s pace — at least for now. As a result, there are 20 in service and 10 waiting to be unwrapped.

But BART Board President Robert Raburn says it’s worth the wait.

“We don’t want to take a whole boatload of new cars that are not complete,” Raburn said. “We want to get it right.”

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross

Whether writing about politics or personalities, Phil Matier has informed and entertained readers for more than two decades about the always fascinating Bay Area and beyond. The blend of scoops, insights and investigative reporting can be found every Sunday, Monday and Wednesday in the Chronicle.